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Longtime teachers union members Norm Scott (left) and Michael Fiorillo give a brief history lesson to potential MORE members Thursday.

Factions from various corners of the city’s educational activism scene are coming together to challenge the Unity Caucus’s political might.

Calling themselves MORE, the Movement of Rank-and-file Educators, members of the fledgling group held their first public meeting in a Lower East Side Bar on Thursday evening. There, they discussed the history of the United Federation of Teachers and floated plans for  a minority caucus they hope could wrest some power from the union’s political majority.

The meeting was led by Norm Scott, Michael Fiorillo, Gloria Brandman and Sam Coleman, retired and current teachers who have been active in union politics for years. Attendees also included a mix of union chapter leaders, Occupy the Department of Education organizers, some of the teachers union’s younger members, and retirees.

As they introduced themselves, many described their disillusionment with a teachers union almost entirely controlled by Unity. Unity has dominated union politics for decades and supported Randi Weingarten and Michael Mulgrew in their bids for the union’s presidency. Both won their elections by huge majorities. (more…)

On most days, Room 404 in Zankel Hall is a laboratory used by graduate students at Columbia University’s Teachers College.

But for the next two weeks, the lab is the temporary headquarters for a group of educators who are rethinking what it means to teach physics to high school students.

The educators are participating in a workshop about a three-decade old teaching strategy called Modeling Instruction in Physics. The strategy shuns the rote memorization of physics formulas and instead applies abstract ideas to real-life situations so that students can observe and understand concepts from “model” experiments.

“This modeling instruction method incorporates the best things that have happened in physics education in the last 50 years, and puts it in a way that is teachable and reproducible to a large extent if the teacher is motivated, interested, and well-educated,” said Fernand Brunschwig.

Brunschwig chairs Physics Teachers NYC, a 100-member group of educators who meet once a month to share ideas and trade instructional methods. The group organized the summer workshop. (more…)

• The city may colocate two more Success Academy Charter Schools in Manhattan. (WSJ)
• Class sizes are growing in city public schools, such as P.S. 148 in Queens. (HuffPo)
• Two MS students were charged with a hate-crime after attacking an eighth-grader. (NY1)
• A former teacher is leading an Occupy Wall Street “summer camp” for city teens. (Times)
• A federal court ruled that the city must pay for a bullied student’s private school tuition. (Post)
• L.A. Times: Schools should balance rote learning with creative projects for better outcomes.
• Textbook publisher McGraw-Hill may sell its education business division. (Post)
• SED will release test score data for grades third through eighth on Tuesday. (GothamSchools)

Last week on GothamSchools:

• Principals struggle to fund summer “bridge” programs for incoming students. (Monday)
• City teachers share practices for overcoming students’ cultural differences. (Tuesday)
• The city lost its bid to continue turnaround hiring while awaiting an appeal. (Tuesday)
• Teachers who scored Regents exams centrally criticized the new model. (Wednesday)
• Administrators warned of leadership vacuum in turnaround schools. (Wednesday)
• IBO report: student tests scores have not improved as much as officials say. (Thursday)